NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the New York Giants have each come under tremendous fire in recent weeks for the decision to suspend kicker Josh Brown only a single game following a May 2015 domestic violence arrest.

Related

Although the Giants admitted error earlier this week following Brown’s release, Goodell continues to stand by his decision to suspend Brown only a single game.

Even in the face of new evidence made public by King County after charges were declined to be filed against Brown, Goodell says the league only had enough information to warrant the one-game suspension.

“Here’s the issue, the discipline that occurred on the one game was for the event on May of 2015,” Goodell told the New York Daily News on Wednesday. “That was the only one that we were able to get of all the different things that we’ve heard. The decision was made by our team after we had the evidence to be able to support the one game. We knew we would get challenged (by the NFL Players Association) and we were able to uphold it.”

Goodell went on to call domestic violence a “complex issue,” but believes the NFL has made “tremendous progress” in how they deal with it.

“What you see here is a [Personal Conduct Policy] that’s evolved. We’ve learned a lot, but these are complex matters. When you talk to the domestic violence experts, these are difficult matters to deal with,” Goodell said.

“You have rights, you have families that you have to be concerned with, privacy issues. Yes, you want to make sure you’re doing everything possible to address these (alleged incidents) when they happen, but you also want to deal with them to prevent them from happening. … I think we’ve made tremendous progress. Can we make more and will we make more? Of course.”

Related

As popular opinion of Goodell continues to sour because of the league’s inconsistent policies and punishments, this latest round of defiance in the aftermath of another public relations nightmare will only serve to damage the NFL further.

Like this article?

Sign up for the Giants Wire email newsletter to get our top stories in your inbox every morning

Success

Thanks for signing up.
You'll be waking up a little more awesome tomorrow.